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Constitutional Scholar Sujit Choudhry Writes About What Rights A President Has To Revoke Security Clearances

Sujit Choudhry has researched and taught constitutional matters all over the world. Sujit Choudhry is presently working at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center in Germany as a guest researcher. In addition to his work, he likes to let regular people know about constitutional matters in the news on his widely followed blog.

One of these constitutional matters in the news is whether the President of the United States can revoke someone’s security clearances or not. Sujit Choudhry posed the question of whether the President can pull someone’s security clearance for any reason, or does he even have to give a reason? This question was brought up on August 15th when President Donald Trump chose to revoke the security clearances of former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency’s John Brennan, know more on (Linkedin.com).

At the time he said he was thinking about pulling the security clearances of other former members of the national security community who had criticized him. Among these people he chose to threaten were James Comey, James Clapper, Michael Hayden, Bruce Ohr, Lisa Page, Susan Rice, Andrew McCabe, and Peter Strzok who had all worked with distinction for the federal government in the past.

Sujit Choudhry wrote that people might wonder why someone that used to be a national security official but isn’t anymore would even need to continue to have clearance on certain security matters. The reason, he wrote, is that they still have a lot of useful knowledge and could be of help in the future in matters they are familiar with. If they stay in the loop they can help protect the nation, check (Facebook.com).

After being threatened by Trump, Clapper called his action’s petty and harmful to the nation’s security. Some have argued that the President can revoke anybody’s security clearance with “unfettered authority” and pointed to some past case law. Sujit Choudhry wrote that others have said the presidential powers in this regards are more narrowly defined than that and he can’t simply pull someone’s security clearance without justification. He is interested in whether this matter will result in a lawsuit and if it will be allowed to go forward or not, find out more details on patch.com.